Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a guidance display technique in an apparatus capable of multi-login.
Description of the Related Art
A recent image forming apparatus includes a function to display a customized screen dedicated to each user and an ID authentication (user authentication) function to securely print a document of each user.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-263484 has disclosed the technique to display a customized screen unique to a user by including an NFC reader/writer and reading information held within an NFC compatible device, such as a smart phone.
In the image forming apparatus adopting the technique of Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2010-263484 described above, in the case where the supply of power to the NFC reader/write is cut off in the power-saving mode for power saving, it is no longer possible to perform communication even by performing the touch operation using the NFC compatible device. Consequently, at the time of the power-saving mode such as this, the user will be confused because it is not possible to determine whether the image forming apparatus is in the state where the communication by the NFC system can be performed, whether it is necessary to press down, for example, the power-saving button, in advance in order to enable communication, which operation the user should perform, etc.
Further, there is a case where a user is confused about whether or not to perform the touch operation using the NFC compatible device because it is hard to recognize the position where the NFC reader/writer is arranged in the image forming apparatus, or it is not possible to immediately grasp the fact that the NFC reader/writer is installed.
The above-described problem also applies similarly to the case where user authentication is performed by means of the technique of card authentication or biometric authentication, in addition to the case of user authentication using an NFC compatible device.
In particular, with an apparatus capable of multi-login by a plurality of users, each user has the above-described problem of confusion, and besides that, it is necessary to make adjustment between users in order to solve the problem.